Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued President Donald Trump’s vision for the Gaza Strip is a different strategy for peace than what has been tried before, adding that the commander in chief is keeping “all options open.”
Trump said Tuesday that he would do “what is necessary” to take over the Gaza Strip and rebuild it, adding that the United States would “own it” in the future. In elaborating on the president’s comments, Hegseth explained that Trump recognizes “the definition of insanity,” doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, which is why Trump aims to “overturn the apple cart” with the situation in Gaza.
“I’m a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I recognize what entanglement in the last two decades has looked like,” Hegseth said on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. “President Trump was one of the first people to call the Iraq War a dumb war. That’s not to impugn those that served there. I love the legacy of those that served there, but the recognition of the result is that we got entangled for decades, and what did America get out of it? So he knows that. He’s led the charge on raising the alarm bells about that. That’s not what Gaza’s about. Gaza’s about keeping all options open, recognizing the support of an ally, and thinking outside the box, and who knows what happens after that?”
Hegseth further explained that Trump has done more than anyone else to bring peace to the Middle East, citing the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term. The defense secretary also mentioned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has referred to Trump as a “disruptor” who can provide “new ideas” for peace in the region.
Following Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, the Army revealed that it had its highest enrollment in 15 years in December, enlisting an average of 346 soldiers every day for a monthly total of 10,726 recruitments. Hegseth argued two factors are at play with this enrollment bump: the “Trump effect” boosting the nation’s morale and people recognizing they would be “defending our homeland.”
“We’ve spent two decades guarding other people’s borders, and when you meet these men and women on our border, in real time, able to defend their communities, their families, their churches, their school, they love that,” Hegseth said. “They’re motivated by that, and they know we will have their back, so this is part of a real solution to a real problem that the president promised the American people, and he’s delivering.”
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Amid the revelation that Trump aims to “own” Gaza in the future, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has assured that the president is “not committed to putting boots on the ground” in the region.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has praised Trump’s vision for Gaza, deeming it “a remarkable idea” that ought to be pursued.